Medical care

The first day I arrived in Portugal, I managed to slam my very heavy suitcase into my ankle. That just happened to be the same spot where I broke it 20 years ago and have some screws in it -ow!

Fast forward 2 weeks and it is still developing new bruising…I’m taking it easy-ish, but not staying off it completely. My sister convinced me to see a doctor about it. I did get travel insurance through AXA (shengen travel) for the year since I plan on being back here in October. So I connected with their evisit doctor. While very nice, she couldn’t do much for me but documented the visit and said to submit her notes with the receipts when I go to a local doctor. She suggested I go to the emergency room, but Portugal just changed things and you call first to go and do triage over the phone.

Since I don’t start my Portuguese classes until next week, I decided to go to a private clinic in the same building as the condo I rent. I went to LuzDoc in Praia da Luz. I just walked in to request to make an appointment - ready to try and talk in Portuguese, but they all spoke English. They got me right in and I had a prescription for an x-ray (consult fee 65 euro). They will book it for you for a small fee (which, of course I did and feel that it was worth it - 19 euro). This was already about 4pm and I had meetings on Friday that I couldn’t miss. So I asked if it wasn’t at 8 or 9 am on Friday, I could do Monday. They emailed back with both options and I selected Monday because it was in Lagos instead of Alvor.

Booked a car on Bolt for 5 euro (I always tip in cash, which I think the drivers appreciate). Arrived to the marina medical clinic 15 minutes early, filled out some paperwork, and paid $36 euro for the X-ray. I was given a CD to take back to my doctor and they will email the report to them and I asked them to send it to me also. Dropped off my CD and the clinic called with some good news - no fractures.

I will post an update with my experience with AXA reimbursement of fees :)